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Random images are used for placeholder art all the time in games. You just are supposed to replace them before you ship.

I've only worked on indie games, so I don't know what a AAA studio's process is, but I can see how you might miss something with 1000's of art assets in your game.

That's just an explanation for how an unsourced image makes it into the game. This specific one? Not sure, maybe they googled "dead body" and used one of the first images? I certainly had never seen that image before, and it does look like a movie still.

Sure, it's possible this was placeholder art. But considering this is a real body of a person (if the artist didn't even check the source for the google image search, that was the first mistake), that no one vetted this later on shows some kind of real fuckup in their asset pipeline. I mean at a AAA level this kind of thing shouldn't slip by. I've worked on agency projects before and any externally-sourced art or photos is generally buttoned up tight because the price for not making sure everything is cleared is a nice lawsuit and sometimes bad press.

On top of that, it's just.... it's a dead body, right there on the screen. It just blows my mind that it got all the way to this point without a project manager saying, "Hey..uh, so about that dead body there..."

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Sure, it's possible this was placeholder art. But considering this is a real body of a person (if the artist didn't even check the source for the google image search, that was the first mistake), that no one vetted this later on shows some kind of real fuckup in their asset pipeline. I mean at a AAA level this kind of thing shouldn't slip by. I've worked on agency projects before and any externally-sourced art or photos is generally buttoned up tight because the price for not making sure everything is cleared is a nice lawsuit and sometimes bad press.

On top of that, it's just.... it's a dead body, right there on the screen. It just blows my mind that it got all the way to this point without a project manager saying, "Hey..uh, so about that dead body there..."

I can't say what their system is because I've never worked at a AAA company. But the point of placeholder art is that it's fast and there's no overhead. Having to do a reverse google image search on every piece of placeholder art and then having your boss vet it would be silly, as only the dev team should ever see it.

Think about the artist's thought process. "I just need to communicate internally that there is a dead body here until we get the final art in. OK, time for google". Anything slower than that would be inefficient.

Every game developer in existence uses placeholder art during development, Naughty Dog happened to miss one of their placeholder art pieces and it made it into one of their trailers, the internet thinks Naughty Dog are incompetent for making a simple mistake.

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Very similar images were posted on the first page of the GAF thread, including one from CNN which was just a different angle.

If you completely ignore international news, maybe you could miss it. But it's not like this was some small event that only got local coverage overseas, especially with the shooter's rant about Syria and Turkish/Russian relations at the time.

I'm not saying people didn't hear about it; I'm saying people might not have seen the image. I definitely heard about the news at the time. Plus in the age of people cutting the cord, there are now plenty of people not watching live TV or TV news. Heck the previous GAF thread you linked to does not use that picture once. The way that picture looks as others have indicator is like right out of a movie. I heard plenty of discussion, lots of talk on the radio, but not once had I seen that image until today and clearly in this thread other people as well. Still no excuse on Telltale's part though.

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I can't say what their system is because I've never worked at a AAA company. But the point of placeholder art is that it's fast and there's no overhead. Having to do a reverse google image search on every piece of placeholder art and then having your boss vet it would be silly, as only the dev team should ever see it.

Think about the artist's thought process. "I just need to communicate internally that there is a dead body here until we get the final art in. OK, time for google". Anything slower than that would be inefficient.

I can't speak to AAA pipeline process either, but in my experience (and practice), placeholder art is always logged for future purchase in case the AD or CD likes it and wants to use it. To just grab random images from google without any idea where it came from seems very unprofessional.

But as I emphasized, this is not just on the artist, as the checks in place to make sure unlicensed artwork, or you know...a dead body of a man...doesn't reach the audience totally failed. If they even have checks like that at Telltale. If they don't, I'm sure they will now.

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I have, couldn't have connected seeing the body in-game to the real life situation though. Still it's pretty damn odd and distasteful to have it in the game. I'd assume it will be removed and Telltale will apologize for the mistake, or whatever it was. Or atleast that's how I would do it.

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Very similar images were posted on the first page of the GAF thread, including one from CNN which was just a different angle.

If you completely ignore international news, maybe you could miss it. But it's not like this was some small event that only got local coverage overseas, especially with the shooter's rant about Syria and Turkish/Russian relations at the time.

I heard about the assassination at the time, and read a bit about it. There's no chance I'd remember that particular image. And that image looks like a stock photo... I could easily see someone making an honest mistake.

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That's exactly why I don't understand how can this happen. When you make a videogame, an ad, a movie, you know you can't just grab whatever and use it without getting into trouble later. That's why stock image websites exist

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Honestly the events behind that photo got a lot of media coverage and the image itself got a World Press Award making exhibition with it and a bunch of others around the world. How is even possibile that someone working on visual field is not aware of such a iconic image?

Anyway I understand that every developer today use placeholders and such, but to me looks like a dangerous practice. It's easy to have one slip through.

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Probably a stock photo that was not marked right. It looks very artificial, so if one not saw the images on the news one would definitely not expect it to be real.

Where are telltale from? I have heard from this murder but never bothered to look at pictures or the video. Respectable TV news had not shown the footage anyway, at least in many European countries they show no images of murder victims.

Besides whats this talk about "Telltale and AAA games", these words absolutely have no connection since years

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Disregarding how disrespectful using that image is for a game, it's incredible how cavalier people creating digital goods can be about someone else's copyright. Unless they actually paid to use the image which would be insane considereing the image matter